At last: two industry-funded studies with results that do NOT favor the sponsor’s interest

As regular readers know, I’ve been posting studies funded by food companies with results favorable to the companies’ interests whenever I run across five of them. Since mid-March, I’ve posted 7 such collections for a total of 37 studies (two of the posts listed 6 studies). These are all papers published since March.

With each set, I asked readers to send examples of studies that do not favor the sponsor’s interest.

They are rare, but do exist. I’ve been sent two so far. I’m guessing it will be a long time before I collect five, so have a look:

Conclusions: Moderate intake of butter resulted in increases in total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol compared with the effects of olive oil intake and a habitual diet (run-in period). Furthermore, moderate butter intake was also followed by an increase in HDL cholesterol compared with the habitual diet. We conclude that hypercholesterolemic people should keep their consumption of butter to a minimum, whereas moderate butter intake may be considered part of the diet in the normocholesterolemic population.

Sponsor: Danish Dairy Research Foundation

Comment: The data clearly show that butter raises blood cholesterol levels. The authors spin it as positively as possible—higher HDL and it’s OK for people with normal cholesterol to eat moderate amounts of butter—but they make the downside quite clear. In this study, “moderate” butter means 4.5% of calories or just 2/3 of a tablespoon for someone eating 2000 calories. That’s not much, alas.